"What are you doing?" the officer asked the woman huddled in the center of her cell floor. She didn't respond.

She sat cross-legged on the cold concrete, rocking slightly. A low, rhythmic mumbling escaped her lips. It sounded like praying, but the cadence was wrong—too guttural, too desperate.

The officer asked again, this time punctuating the question by raking his baton across the cell bars with a harsh clang.

"Hey! I asked you a question. What are you doing?"

The mumbling stopped abruptly. When she opened her eyes, the overhead fluorescent lights sizzled and dimmed. She didn't just stare at the cop; she pierced him with a look devoid of humanity. He involuntarily took a step back, a chill snaking up his spine.

"Alright. Backing off."

A few minutes later, another officer walked into the station bullpen, shaking off the night chill.

"Hey, Ledda. What's up with that girl in cell block D? The one at the very end?"

Officer Ledda looked up from his paperwork. "What are you talking about? What's wrong with her?"

"She’s just sitting on the floor in the dark, whispering weird shit. I don’t know if she’s praying to God or something else, but she creeps me out." Mike shivered involuntarily.

"A ninety-pound girl creeps you out?" Officer Ledda chuckled, though it sounded forced.

"The lights flickered when she looked at me, dude. I'm serious."

Officer Ledda shook his head, grabbing his flashlight. "Come on, scaredy-cat. Let's take a walk down there. It's her last night on earth anyway. Tomorrow she gets the needle and it’s bye-bye, birdie."

They started walking toward the heavy steel door of the cell block.

"Why is she getting injected, anyway? What the hell did she actually do? I just transferred in."

Officer Ledda stopped, his amusement fading. "Oh, you don't know?" He lowered his voice. "She killed four of her boyfriends. The second they realized she was certifiable and tried to leave, she ended them. She has an obsession with every man she claims. Cops from another precinct found a shrine in her house, barricaded in a closet. I'm talking pictures of these guys sleeping, in the shower, walking to work. She had their belongings pinned to the wall—underwear, razors, cologne bottles, strands of hair—all covered in strange symbols scribbled in marker."

Mike swallowed hard.

"And she didn't just kill them, Mike. They were butchered. Mutilated beyond recognition. The last dude she was with would have been number five, but he somehow got away."

"Lucky guy," Officer Mike whispered, rubbing the back of his neck.

They opened the cell block door. The air inside felt heavier, colder than the hallway. It was eerily quiet; the usual sounds of snoring or shouting inmates were absent.

"Go ahead, Mike." Ledda gestured with his flashlight.

Mike looked at Ledda with genuine concern. "After that bedtime story you just told me, you expect me to walk first? You’re out of your mind."

Ledda sighed, feigning bravery, and stepped in front. Mike followed close behind, his flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. The overhead lights were oddly dim, pulsing with a weak, sickly yellow hue.

They reached the final cell on the right. It appeared empty.

Suddenly, two slender arms shot out from between the bars.

Both officers jumped back, hands flying to their holsters.

"Hello, officers," a voice purred from the shadows. It was smooth like velvet over gravel. "Came to pay the weirdo a visit?"

She stepped into the meager light. She stood about 5'8", with flawless dark caramel skin and short, jet-black hair. Her lips were plump and pink, curved into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. In any other setting, she would have been stunning. Here, she was terrifying.

"Just making sure you're good, little lady," Officer Ledda said, his voice tight. He gave Mike an elbow shove. "You gave my buddy here quite a scare earlier."

"A scare? Whatever do you mean?" Her smile widened, sly and knowing.

"My friend said you made the lights flicker and were whispering some voodoo nonsense. We came to prove that you're just a regular girl waiting for her punishment." Ledda tried to smirk, but his lip trembled.

"Oh! I made the lights flicker? And I scared you?" She laughed, a sound like wind chimes in a graveyard. Her expression instantly shifted from amusement to a menacing glare. She pulled her arms back and walked slowly backward toward the center of the cell.

The lights surged, buzzing angrily. When they stabilized, the girl was looking up at them. Her eyes were gone. Where there should have been whites and irises, there were only pools of abyssal black.

"You see, man? I told you!" Mike was already backing toward the exit.

A screech of tearing metal erupted from behind them. Ledda spun around as he was reaching for the door handle.

In the strobe-light flickering of the dying fluorescents, they saw her. She wasn't in the cell. She was clinging to the ceiling of the hallway like a spider, head rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, staring down at them with those obsidian eyes.

"Go, Mike! GO!"

Both officers scrambled, stumbling over each other in blind panic. Ledda turned and drew his weapon, ready to fire at the ceiling, but the hallway was empty. He looked back at the cell.

She was sitting on the edge of her cot, legs crossed, hands folded neatly on her knee. She waved playfully and smiled.

Ledda didn't holster his gun. He backed out of the cell block, nearly tripping over the doorframe.

"Mike," he gasped, his chest heaving. "Get on the phone. Call Mr. Guerrero. The survivor. I need to ask him some questions about this bitch."

Mr. Guerrero—Rafael—walked into his silent home, exhausted from work. He kicked off his shoes, grabbed a glass of water, and collapsed onto the living room sofa.

He exhaled a long, shaky breath. "She's finally gone."

He knew she was up for the death penalty, but the waiting game was its own form of torture. He couldn't believe he had stayed with her for so long. He had seen the red flags painted in blood but remained in denial.

He remembered the nights he’d wake up to hear her whispering to empty corners. The sudden, bone-chilling cold spots in a heated room. The shadows that seemed to detach themselves from the walls in their bedroom. Objects vanishing and reappearing days later in impossible places. Ever since her arrest, the house felt lighter. Brighter.

He connected his phone to a Bluetooth speaker and put on some upbeat jazz to drown out the silence. He hopped in the shower, letting the hot water scald away the day's anxiety. As he lathered his hair, a distinct, icy breeze swept across his wet back. He froze. The shower curtain rippled, bulging inward as if someone were standing just on the other side.

Heart hammering, he ripped the curtain aside.

Nothing. Just an empty bathroom and steam fogging the mirror.

"I'm buggin' out," he chuckled nervously, turning the water off quickly.

His phone rang in the other room, startling him. He wrapped a towel around his waist and answered.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, is this Mr. Guerrero?"

"Speaking. Who's this?"

"This is Officer Mike from the 66th precinct. I’m one of the officers who processed your ex-girlfriend."

"Okay..." Rafael tensed. "I thought the investigation was over."

"It is. Look, this is off the record. We just experienced some... weird shit down here with her. We have questions that need answers. Tonight."

Rafael closed his eyes. It never ended. "I'm on my way."

At the station, the atmosphere was tense.

"How can I help you, sir?" the desk sergeant asked.

"Officer Mike called me. Rafael Guerrero."

"Right this way."

He was led into a small interrogation room featuring a scarred table and three uncomfortable chairs. Officer Ledda was already seated, looking pale. Mike ushered Rafael in and shut the door.

"Rafael," Ledda started without preamble. "We have some urgent concerns about the prisoner. Have you ever experienced... unexplainable phenomena around her?"

Rafael shifted in his seat. "Unexplainable? Like what? Isn't she scheduled for execution?"

"She is," Mike said, standing by the door. "But tonight, she did things. Impossible things. She made the lights surge. And her eyes... they turned black."

Rafael went cold. He leaned back, crossing his arms defensively. "She is definitely strange."

"So you do know something," Ledda pressed.

"Yeah. She used to terrorize me."

The single bulb in the interrogation room flickered.

"She used to stare at me while I slept," Rafael continued, his voice dropping. "One night I woke up, and she was hovering over me. Not standing. Floating. It freaked me the fuck out."

"Floating?" Ledda asked, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Yeah. And if we argued, she’d stalk me. I’d see her hiding behind trees on my way to work. Once, she ran off when I spotted her and dropped something. It was a voodoo doll made of wax, looking exactly like me, with needles stuck in the eyes. I’d have nightmares of her torturing me and wake up with actual bruises. I’d lock doors that would be wide open in the morning."

The lights flickered again, longer this time. A low electrical hum filled the room.

All three men looked up at the buzzing fixture.

Suddenly, Officer Ledda screamed as his metal chair was violently yanked backward by an unseen force, slamming him against the concrete wall.

Officer Mike tried to bolt from his spot by the door, but he couldn't move. His feet were planted; it looked like an invisible weight was crushing him down. "I can't move! Ledda, I can't move!"

"It's her! She's doing this!" Rafael yelled. He was the only one unbound. He lunged for the door handle, frantically jiggling it. Locked.

"Somebody help! Open the damn door!" he bellowed, pounding on the heavy metal.

The lights blew out completely, plunging them into pitch blackness.

For a heartbeat, there was total silence.

Then, chaos erupted from the other side of the door. Muffled screams, the thud of heavy boots running, the deafening cracks of gunfire. Inhuman shrieks of pain echoed through the precinct hallway. Something massive slammed against the interrogation room door from the outside, shaking the hinges so violently that dust rained down on them.

It felt like an eternity of carnage before the noise abruptly ceased. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise.

In the dark, the three men breathed in ragged gasps.

"You think...?" Mike whispered, his voice trembling.

"She got out," Rafael confirmed. He felt it in his gut.

Slowly, creakily, the interrogation room door swung open on its own.

The red emergency auxiliary lights pulsed in the hallway, casting long, bloody shadows. A body, ripped nearly in half, lay across the threshold.

The three men stepped out into a nightmare.

The hallway was a ruin of shattered glass, overturned desks, and motionless blue uniforms pooled in blood. They crouched low, Ledda leading with his gun drawn, keeping Rafael between himself and Mike.

In the distance, the heavy slam of a cell door echoed like a gunshot.

The red emergency lights strobed dizzyingly, making movement look jerky and unreal.

Rafael grabbed Mike's arm, pointing down the long corridor.

"Ledda," Mike whispered, his voice barely audible. "Look."

At the far end of the hall, a figure stood silhouetted against the pulsing red light. It was twitching.

"I see it." Ledda raised his weapon.

The figure dropped to all fours and began to sprint toward them, moving with the unnatural, jerky speed of an insect.

"Run! Back inside!" Ledda yelled.

They scrambled back toward the interrogation room. Rafael and Ledda dove inside, but before Mike could cross the threshold, the door slammed shut with crushing force, severing him from them.

"MIKE!" Rafael threw his shoulder against the steel door. It didn't budge.

From the other side, there was a wet, sickening crunch, followed by silence.

Ledda spun around, sweeping the small room with his gun, wild-eyed. "Where is she? How did she—"

A drop of thick, warm liquid landed on Rafael's cheek. Then another.

He slowly looked up.

She was there. Clinging to the ceiling corner directly above Ledda.

"Ledda! Above you!"

Ledda looked up just as she dropped.

She landed on his shoulders with the weight of a boulder, her legs wrapping around his torso. Her eyes were glowing yellow lamps in the red darkness. Her jaw unhinged unnaturally wide, revealing rows of needle-like teeth before she clamped down on his face.

Ledda screamed—a guttural, wet sound that was cut short as she ripped backward, tearing away cheek and muscle. Blood sprayed across the walls. He collapsed, dropping his gun.

Rafael dove for the weapon, sliding in Ledda’s blood. He grabbed the gun, rolled onto his back, and aimed upward.

She was gone.

Rafael scrambled backward into a corner, chest heaving, holding the gun with shaking hands. The room was silent except for Ledda’s agonizing gurgles.

"Rafael..." a voice whispered directly into his ear.

He spun and fired blindly into the corner. Nothing.

"Don't let her in your head, kid," Ledda wheezed from the floor, clutching his ruined face.

A shadow detached itself from the ceiling directly in front of Rafael. She materialized from the darkness, her face smeared with Ledda’s blood, smiling that horrific, loving smile.

She laughed—a high, maniacal shriek that pierced his eardrums—and lunged.

Rafael didn't think. He just pulled the trigger.

The boom of the service weapon was deafening in the small room. The shot hit her dead center in the forehead. Her head snapped back violently, and she dropped to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.

Rafael lowered the gun, his breath catching in his throat. He stared at the body. The black was fading from her eyes, leaving them glassy and vacant.

"Did you... did you get her?" Ledda grunted weakly.

Rafael didn't move his eyes from the corpse. "Yeah. I got her."

Rafael returned home hours later, after the real police, the paramedics, and the coroner had swarmed the precinct.

He stood in his shower for an hour, scrubbing until his skin was raw, trying to wash the smell of blood and ozone off his body. It was over. She was really gone this time. He had seen the life—or whatever animated her—leave her body.

He stepped out, dried off, and turned on the TV to distract himself. The news was already reporting a "tragic incident involving a prisoner escape and multiple officer fatalities" at the 66th precinct. It felt surreal, like he was watching a movie of someone else's life.

He turned the TV off. He checked the deadbolt on his front door three times. Finally, exhaustion overtook fear, and he crawled into bed.

Silence. Peace. He fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

His alarm clock screamed at 8:00 AM.

Groggily, Rafael reached out an arm to slap the snooze button. His hand didn't hit the clock. It hit something warm. Something soft.

He shot his eyes open.

She was lying next to him, her head propped on her hand, staring at him with adoring, obsidian-black eyes. The bullet hole in her forehead was a dark, puckered abyss.

She smiled, showing her teeth.

"I told you, baby," she whispered, stroking his cheek with an ice-cold finger. "You can never leave me."

Rafael opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

Obsession

Obsession

Passage 1

Dialogue